Thursday, May 13, 2010

Hard

Chris loved it.
Andrea devoured it.

So it's been on my night table for over a year.
I've started reading it three times. Got half way through on the most recent attempt but just couldn't keep the storyline straight.

I took another kick at that cat, figuratively speaking, and trudged through it, 3 - 4 pages at a time. It was deep. Heavy. Confusing. Brilliant. Intertwining. Enlightening. Tragic. Historical. Romantic. Gruesome.
And I wasn't the only one who found it a hard read.
When I went online to check out the reviews, it was unanimous.




Nevertheless, it was Fascinating. With a capital F.
Did you know about the Catholics and Jews and the Germans and the Fascists in the northern corner of Italy during the last 18 months of World War II?
If you're smarter than me, you should read this book.

Three things I'm thankful for:
1. Free Evening Lectures at Regent College. Tonight's was "Why Emotional Intelligence is Missing From Our Churches." by President Rod Wilson.
So so sooooo good.
Thoughts, quotes and questions from tonight:

  • Your IQ (and technical skill) will get you in, but your EI (Emotional Intelligence) will determine how well you'll do. (In terms of a job.)
  • Academic intelligence offers virtually no preparation for the turmoil - or opportunity - life's vicissitudes bring. Yet even though a high IQ is no guarantee of prosperity, prestige, or happiness in life, our schools and our culture fixate on academic abilities.
  • Do Christian communities still have a quiet view that IQ is most important and in the process fail to acknowledge the significance of EQ? This tendency results in minimizing and denying of emotion in community.
  • Do Christian communities have a subtle docetic view of Jesus (Jesus was fully divine, but his human body was an illusion)that then gets translated into emotion being in opposition to that which is spiritual? This tendency results in minimizing and denying of emotion in community.
  • Have Christian communities overvalued thinking and minimized emotion to such a degree that we have become disconnected from the way we have been created. This tendency results in minimizing and denying of emotion in community.
  • Abundance has satisfied, and even oversatisfied, the material needs of millions - boosting the significance of beauty and emotion and accelerating individual's search for meaning. Asia is now performing large amounts of routine, white-collar, left-brain work at significantly lower costs, thereby forcing knowledge workers in the advanced world to master abilities that can't be shipped overseas. And automation has begun to affect this generation's white-collar workers in much the same way it did last generation's blue collar workers, requiring left-brained professionals to develop aptitudes that computers can't do better, faster or cheaper.
  • Not that the old way does not matter... it's just no longer sufficient
  • Now we need design, story, empathy, sympathy, play and meaning.

2. I thankful there's always someone who wants to drive to these lectures with me. And is OK about talking about the content ALL THE WAY HOME.

3. I am thankful for 5 and 2 Ministries

Shalom,

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Yet even though a high IQ is no guarantee of prosperity, prestige, or happiness in life, our schools and our culture fixate on academic abilities."

Where's the proof, evidence, or rationale for this comment?

I believe society very much favours EQ over IQ.

Jane said...

The comment came from D. Goleman's book, "Emotional Intelligence: Why It Matters More Than IQ" Bantam, 1995

I guess you'll have to check this reference to see his proof, evidence and rationale.

Thanks for commenting.